The concept of the essays are "provide an example when someone provided the functions of leadership when management was needed or management when leadership was needed".See (essay) attachment and prov

Essay 1

Less Leadership More Management

I am a Sr. Talent Business Partner at a residential solar company. This week a newer Branch Operations Manager called me and stated that an Installer was interested in training to learn the role of a Branch Operations Coordinator. The manager expressed that developing his employees was extremely important to him and wanted to know how to best go about allowing the employee to learn this other role. According to our text, the role of a managerial leader is to mentor and develop employees which is exactly what this manager was attempting to do. (Quinn, Faerman, Thompson, McGrath, & Bright, 2015) In my role, I have found that many managers forget to lead in this way and are more focused on the day to day managerial tasks. I think the managers desire to support this employee and commitment to mentor and develop the employee is a sign of great leadership. I asked the manager if this is an employee he could actually see hiring into the Branch Operations Coordinator role and he said no. When I asked why he explained that the employee had issues with maintaining professionalism and gave me several examples of incidents where the employee had displayed unprofessional conduct. I asked the manager what he had done to date to manage this behavior and he said he had not addressed it. Therefore, it was my recommendation that this employee needed more management and less leadership. I recommended that he have a transparent conversation with the employee regarding his concerns with his professionalism and let the employee know that he needs to see improvement in this area before considering investing time in developing him for a new role. I also recommended that he actually start managing this employee and disciplining him if he displays this type of conduct in the future. Although the manager’s intentions were good, the foundation of management was needed in this scenario more than leadership.

References

Quinn, R. E., Faerman, S. R., Thompson, M. P., McGrath, M. R., & Bright, D. S. (2015). Becoming a master manager: A competing values approach (Vol. 6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. .

Essay 2

Currently, I am employed by the Department of Defense (DOD) and work as a logistician ensuring logistical demands and requests are supported throughout the United States and overseas. More times than not, logistic requests come at the last second in the planning cycle. The operations section will develop plans without involving logisticians during ongoing planning meeting(s). At the conclusion of the planning cycle, the logisticians are required to fulfill logistical support requests that continue to put strain on outside relationships in order to meet operational requirements. The pressure has magnified over the past year. My Boss who has been in the industry for over twenty years continues to set the pace and provide much needed guidance at any moment. He knows very well the purser involved ensuring logistical demands are met at all costs. However, it wasn't until recently, as our team started to grow, that I really had a chance to see the true leadership my Boss processes. I noticed him take three to four hours a day to truly work with one individual from the team at a time. It didn't matter what position that individual held or how long that individual had worked for the company, by Boss understood the importance of developing his subordinates. As he continued to develop his team, I started to notice my Boss would delegate a lot more. As the team continued to develop, it allowed my Boss the opportunity to look forward and interject himself into operational planning meetings. His efforts not only saved the company’s outside logistical support relationships, my Boss has changed the overall thinking of the company. This is the first time in my 10 year professional working career that I have ever witnessed change like this. My Boss was dedicated, had an understanding of operational demands, and understood the importance of developing his team and subordinates.